Skye1013 wrote:As Jim pointed out, they shouldn't have to ask it... it's within their (legislature) power to say whether or not he has that as an option. If they're asking, then clearly they aren't doing their job (as if the sequestration didn't already show that.)

The more I read from that guy, the more he sounds like every other blow hard demagogue out there. That's unfortunate, I was hoping he wasn't like that when I first read his blog.

The reason for the filibuster wasn't just about the question, is was because the first time the question was asked, it wasn't clearly answered. Granted Holder wasn't answering the non engaged aspect, so it wasn't that big of a deal, and it was mostly just a bunch of showboating. At least Jim, "Snark and sarcasm and political theater aside" finally admitted that there was some point.

Congress can't really stop a President's (or his attorney general's) interpretation of law. There is existing law that deals with this, I've read that Sen Paul referenced it quite a bit in his filibuster, but that law is open to interpretation. If the President were to believe that he was authorized such action, it wouldn't be dealt with legislatively until after the fact.

Argentina and the UK have been at each other's throats for decades about those islands, especially now that the UK has begun digging up for oil.One interesting point is that not every inhabitant of the islands could vote. Still, if memory serves, it was certainly over 60% of the population, so, with those restults, we can be pretty sure the vote result is legit.Amusingly, though, Argentina decried the vote as "non-valid" since before the results because the voters aren't inhabitants, but the international equivalent of squatters on Argentinian land.

Business as usual, shall we say.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

My money is on Argentina making a fuss over it purely for domestic policy reasons, and then doing nothing - they tried once and got the behinds handed to them, I doubt very much if they would try again (its not like the power ratio has changed in favor of argentina, I'd guess quite the contrary.

Sagara wrote:Argentina and the UK have been at each other's throats for decades about those islands, especially now that the UK has begun digging up for oil.One interesting point is that not every inhabitant of the islands could vote. Still, if memory serves, it was certainly over 60% of the population, so, with those restults, we can be pretty sure the vote result is legit.Amusingly, though, Argentina decried the vote as "non-valid" since before the results because the voters aren't inhabitants, but the international equivalent of squatters on Argentinian land.

Business as usual, shall we say.

The "non-eligible" could well be under-18s, who are generally non-eligible to vote in any election anywhere.

Argentina's armed forces have hardly been touched since the 1982 war. Their soldiers are under-paid, the machinery is under-maintained and a single destroyer from the British Navy could probably fend them off without breaking a sweat.

My money is on Argentina making a fuss over it purely for domestic policy reasons, and then doing nothing - they tried once and got the behinds handed to them, I doubt very much if they would try again (its not like the power ratio has changed in favor of argentina, I'd guess quite the contrary.

President Fernandez has been using the Falklands as a way to keep domestic policy busy, and to divert attention away from the fact that the State is pretty much bankrupt.

Maybe she'll stop the posturing when all of here military equipment has been destroyed...wait. This is Fernandez de Kirchner we're talking about. If she invades the Falkland Islands, she'll go to the UN and complain that we defended the islands.

Fucking hypocrite, talking about how Britain is acting all colonial while trying to assert control over the islands regardless of what the inhabitants want. SHE is the colonialist (or wannabe colonialist, given that she doesn't have the military power to actually become one).

Fetzie wrote:Fucking hypocrite, talking about how Britain is acting all colonial while trying to assert control over the islands regardless of what the inhabitants want. SHE is the colonialist (or wannabe colonialist, given that she doesn't have the military power to actually become one).

I wonder what the indians* of Argentina think of all that "colonialist!" rethoric?

*amerindians/native argentinians/indigenous/whatever they want to be called

Fetzie wrote:Fucking hypocrite, talking about how Britain is acting all colonial while trying to assert control over the islands regardless of what the inhabitants want. SHE is the colonialist (or wannabe colonialist, given that she doesn't have the military power to actually become one).

I wonder what the indians* of Argentina think of all that "colonialist!" rethoric?

*amerindians/native argentinians/indigenous/whatever they want to be called

Pretty sure they got massacred two hundred years ago by the Spanish colonialists when they arrived in Argentina, so they are not in a position to complain unless somebody can find a medium.

Remember kids! Taking over land is O.K. as long as any former inhabitant is feeding the worms!Seriously, it's hilarious how far this entire story went, because some political douchenoozle can't fess up about socio-economic troubles.

"Hey, guys, as you know, we're hear to discuss the national debt, that has recently-OH FUCK GUYS LOOK AT THAT DOUCHE BRIT ON OUR LAND!!! HAXX!"

*frowns* Wait. Do politicians actually work like every fail raider ever?

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

Skye1013 wrote:As Jim pointed out, they shouldn't have to ask it... it's within their (legislature) power to say whether or not he has that as an option. If they're asking, then clearly they aren't doing their job (as if the sequestration didn't already show that.)

The more I read from that guy, the more he sounds like every other blow hard demagogue out there. That's unfortunate, I was hoping he wasn't like that when I first read his blog.

The reason for the filibuster wasn't just about the question, is was because the first time the question was asked, it wasn't clearly answered. Granted Holder wasn't answering the non engaged aspect, so it wasn't that big of a deal, and it was mostly just a bunch of showboating. At least Jim, "Snark and sarcasm and political theater aside" finally admitted that there was some point.

Congress can't really stop a President's (or his attorney general's) interpretation of law. There is existing law that deals with this, I've read that Sen Paul referenced it quite a bit in his filibuster, but that law is open to interpretation. If the President were to believe that he was authorized such action, it wouldn't be dealt with legislatively until after the fact.

And i'm on the opposite end. The more I read from him, the more I really agree with what he's saying, and while you may not care for the snark and sarcasm, I do. I find it refreshing. It feels like having a conversation with a friend, instead of reading some of the other blogs out there.

That wasn't the reason for the filibuster either. Let's be honest. The point of the filibuster was to delay, to slow down, to obstruct. And Wright even points out, that those questions should be asked. But not by the legislature. They should be asked by the citizens, and the legislature should be finding the answer.

I kind of thought that Congress' job was to create the laws. If they don't like the way a law is interpreted, then they should stop beating around the bush, and clear up the laws. And like he pointed out, many of these very people didn't have a problem with these powers that they voted to the president, when it was their party in the White House. When Dubbya had these powers, there wasn't a huge outcry by either party. This latest filibuster, is just another example at the Floundering attempts to stop, stump, and grind to a halt anything that the Conservatives aren't in favor of right now.

You want to know if the president can? Stop standing there for FOURTEEN FREAKING HOURS DRONING ON, and get done with what was on the table, so that you can get on to the issues that you want to him hawl and complain about.

Sagara wrote:Remember kids! Taking over land is O.K. as long as any former inhabitant is feeding the worms!Seriously, it's hilarious how far this entire story went, because some political douchenoozle can't fess up about socio-economic troubles.

"Hey, guys, as you know, we're hear to discuss the national debt, that has recently-OH FUCK GUYS LOOK AT THAT DOUCHE BRIT ON OUR LAND!!! HAXX!"

*frowns* Wait. Do politicians actually work like every fail raider ever?

To answer the question; no.If you add in a "some" or "populist" between "Do" and "politicians", then abso-f'ing-lutely.

Shoju wrote:And i'm on the opposite end. The more I read from him, the more I really agree with what he's saying, and while you may not care for the snark and sarcasm, I do. I find it refreshing. It feels like having a conversation with a friend, instead of reading some of the other blogs out there.

Fair enough.

Shoju wrote:That wasn't the reason for the filibuster either. Let's be honest. The point of the filibuster was to delay, to slow down, to obstruct.

Honest? I can't imagine how you could possibly reach that conclusion. I mean I get that a filibuster in general is meant to block a vote, but if there was ever a filibuster whose intent had nothing to do with your conclusion, it's this one. It was grandstanding, it was getting a point across, but it wasn't seriously meant to block the vote on Brennan. Is anyone even trying to claim otherwise?

Shoju wrote:And Wright even points out, that those questions should be asked. But not by the legislature. They should be asked by the citizens, and the legislature should be finding the answer.

First, the legislature is a group of citizens and they are meant to represent other citizens, so doesn't it make sense that they would ask? Isn't asking probably the best way to find that answer? I'd think it would be pretty difficult to know how an administration interprets a given set of laws, without asking or waiting until the administration acts contrary to its intent. So the question was asked, and when he felt like the question was dodged, he staged the filibuster to make his protest and ask again. When he got a direct response, he declared success and stopped...hard to argue with that.

Shoju wrote:And like he pointed out, many of these very people didn't have a problem with these powers that they voted to the president, when it was their party in the White House. When Dubbya had these powers, there wasn't a huge outcry by either party. This latest filibuster, is just another example at the Floundering attempts to stop, stump, and grind to a halt anything that the Conservatives aren't in favor of right now.

Yeah, well that is a flimsy argument all around. The point here is Paul's filibuster, now we jump to "many of these people" as if that's particularly relevant. The truth is, Paul wasn't even in office when these laws were put in place. These laws have passed and been extended with broad bipartisan support, except from Paul. I think he was the only Senator to vote against them. In fact he stumped pretty hard against the Patriot Act extension. It's a bit unfair to lump those folks into a criticism of Paul, and entirely consistent for Paul to be scrutinizing these topics now. It's also not inconsistent to have been in favor of the Patriot Act and not expect drones to be used in this way. Besides plenty of Dems want greater transparency on these issues too.

Again, I can't understand the idea that this was some attempt to stop something that conservatives aren't in favor of. First of all, it's probably impossible for Paul to have seriously attempted to block the vote because enough Republicans actually were in favor of Brennan. A serious filibuster would have failed. When Paul got his answer, he stopped his filibuster and the vote went on and Brennan was confirmed pretty easily. I have no idea how that could be considered an attempt to block his confirmation.

Shoju wrote:You want to know if the president can? Stop standing there for FOURTEEN FREAKING HOURS DRONING ON, and get done with what was on the table, so that you can get on to the issues that you want to him hawl and complain about.

Wow...fourteen whole hours? Funny thing is, he got his answer...how long do you think it would have taken and how many legislative sessions would have been delayed had he proposed legislation?

He got his answer, but was it an answer worth getting, or even a question worth asking? Of what possible relevance is the answer to the question, or the question itself, to any citizen out there? To devote 14 hours to a non-issue is literally a waste of time. Not just Paul's time, but the time of all 100 senators.

100 people wasting 14 hours at around $90 per hour (estimated for a $174,000 salary - varies with vacation days) equates to $126,000 of taxpayer money pissed away to answer an irrelevant question.

Proposing legislation is their job. It's what they get paid for. Asking one irrelevant question for 14 hours is just a waste.

The President is going to do whatever it takes to get the job done, because he's sworn to get the job done, and because he's the freaking President. That's the $126,000 answer, except it didn't take me 14 hours to figure it out.

But doing their due diligence before proposing legislation is also incumbent in their job. I mean, it would be a waste of time to propose legislation to make something illegal...that's already considered illegal.

And good grief, please don't even get me started on wasting gov't time/money. Are they even paid by the hour? I suspect they were getting this salary whether they sat there for this or not (and most of them probably didn't stay the whole time), so the costs are somewhat specious. I doubt that all 100 of them were there, and those that were were probably not totally impeded, and could still be productive if they chose. On the relativity scale, this is a ridiculously small example of waste.

But hey, if you want to criticize Paul for the grandstanding and wasting resources, I got no beef with that, but be consistent and scale the complaints appropriately.

If your answer to this is no, then I really don't understand what kind of government/state you want - because the only form of state where I can see the answer not being worth asking is one where you know that regardless whether they answer yes or no, they will change their mind when expedient - i.e. a malevolent dictatorship / policestate / ministry of truth doublespeak.

The point is, obviously, that it was a waste of time, and time is money. What is the worth of our entire Senate on an hourly basis? If they had something important to do like balancing a budget or trimming waste from pork-barrel spending, maybe it's somewhat important that they spend their time on that instead of on stupid questions.

And it is a stupid question. Might as well ask if the President can kill a citizen with a three-tined dinner fork, then work up to a four-tined fork, then maybe a soup spoon. Hell, they could get through the entire Senate session before finishing the flatware. Then onto garden implements, perhaps. The official answer is going to be the same "no" every single damn time because the President doesn't have the authority to assassinate citizens who are minding their own business in peace with *any* implement from the humble spork to the stealth bomber.

When it's war time, however, and when the person in question is involved in activity threatening to the sovereignty of the United States, the President could use literally anything to off the bastard and whether or not it's legal he'd be a national freaking hero for doing it.

So it really is a stupid question, and it really is a waste of the entire Senate's time.

Honestly, can you conceive of a realistic situation where a drone is a superior weapon to take out an individual than a missile, RPG, mortar, or any other conventional weapon up to and including air- and sea-based weapons platforms? Yet nobody has had to take 14 hours of everyone's time to answer if the President has the authority to use those, have they?

Oh, but drone technology - that's all scary and new and stuff so we need to ask special questions, for 14 freaking ours. What a load of bullshit.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/pro-g ... ?ref=fpblgA bipartisan Senate bill preventing a federal shutdown would make four long-standing gun protections permanent, including one preventing the Justice Department from requiring firearms dealers to conduct inventories to make sure weapons haven’t been stolen, congressional aides from both parties said.

Another provision made permanent would prevent the government from changing the definition of antique guns, which can sometimes be easier to obtain than modern weapons. Two others would block the department from denying a license to firearms dealers who report no business activity, and require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to include language in firearms data stating that the information can’t be used to make conclusions about gun crimes.

Koatanga wrote:The point is, obviously, that it was a waste of time, and time is money. What is the worth of our entire Senate on an hourly basis? If they had something important to do like balancing a budget or trimming waste from pork-barrel spending, maybe it's somewhat important that they spend their time on that instead of on stupid questions.

And it is a stupid question. Might as well ask if the President can kill a citizen with a three-tined dinner fork, then work up to a four-tined fork, then maybe a soup spoon. Hell, they could get through the entire Senate session before finishing the flatware. Then onto garden implements, perhaps. The official answer is going to be the same "no" every single damn time because the President doesn't have the authority to assassinate citizens who are minding their own business in peace with *any* implement from the humble spork to the stealth bomber.

When it's war time, however, and when the person in question is involved in activity threatening to the sovereignty of the United States, the President could use literally anything to off the bastard and whether or not it's legal he'd be a national freaking hero for doing it.

So it really is a stupid question, and it really is a waste of the entire Senate's time.

Honestly, can you conceive of a realistic situation where a drone is a superior weapon to take out an individual than a missile, RPG, mortar, or any other conventional weapon up to and including air- and sea-based weapons platforms? Yet nobody has had to take 14 hours of everyone's time to answer if the President has the authority to use those, have they?

Oh, but drone technology - that's all scary and new and stuff so we need to ask special questions, for 14 freaking ours. What a load of bullshit.

I said earlier, I didn't think the question was a big deal. I think the question was kind of silly and that Paul already knew the answer. He wanted the symbolism of getting the white house on the record, but more importantly he wanted to be the face of the somewhat populist position, even if the opposition to that position was invented.

He was grandstanding, as I've said already. Some legislators (including Dems) have suggested that this emphasizes the need for more scrutiny on the drone program and will push Brennan for greater transparency for these types of operations, which I think is important. So maybe it thrusts that conversation into some more prominence, but the drone operation has been getting some bad run across the board lately, so I think that was inevitible anyhow. Ultimately, I think it's a pretty massive reach to suggest anything useful will come from this. Mr. Wright does go into some of the nuance and validity of the point, but you can debate that with him, it's not my argument.

That said, if we're going to throw a hissy about it, then we need to be fair. As far as waste goes this is really laughable, if there's any at all. That's not quite how the senate works. They have an agenda of "the really important" things to get through before spring break, and they'll generally get through them or stay an extra day. At the end they'll tackle the big budget issue and we'll get our typical "11th hour" decision, or we won't, but this will have had no effect. These sessions are like the old cliche about basketaball games, all that matters is the last two minutes.

As a matter of their daily course, our legislators waste ridiculous amounts of time and resources drafting/proposing/even voting on legislation that will never pass or see the light of day in the other house/outside of comittee/in the opposing caucaus, they readily admit to this. They do that for the same reasons Paul did his filibuster, it's grandstanding, they want to be on the record supporting something or get their oppostion on the record not supporting something. It's all about perception and job security, and both sides do that as much as they do any real work at all, and it's not really any different than Paul's filibuster. And that's just one example...

That doesn't justify Paul's actions, but it does make the waste complaint a bit silly unless it's going to be levied fairly at other legislators. My guess is that if this filibuster was led a Dem, those complaining now would have found it "heroic" and vice versa.

If your answer to this is no, then I really don't understand what kind of government/state you want - because the only form of state where I can see the answer not being worth asking is one where you know that regardless whether they answer yes or no, they will change their mind when expedient - i.e. a malevolent dictatorship / policestate / ministry of truth doublespeak.

100% This. The fact that we get to question is, by and large not the norm for most of human history, why I love what Paul did.

If your answer to this is no, then I really don't understand what kind of government/state you want - because the only form of state where I can see the answer not being worth asking is one where you know that regardless whether they answer yes or no, they will change their mind when expedient

Every single government/state will change their mind on this kind of question when "expedient" or "required" or "necessary". It's a matter of scale and trigger.

I will note that I only mentioned expedient. "Required" and "necessary" are different arguments, and, some I would presume would trigger some debate prior to actually doing stuff, as for something to be required or necessary, you have to demonstrate that. Being expedient is simply a matter of being the easiest way to do something.

I will note, too though, that in my opinion it has all become too much of the end justifies the means - something I vehemently disagree with, if we (any western nation) break the laws and legal traditions (or change them to avoid breaking them) to fight "the terrorists", then we have not only let "the terrorists" win, we did so by forfeiting the dispute.

Since 9/11-01 - thats 12 ½ years - there have been 2 other major attacks (London and Madrid). While the intelligence services may have prevented more, we won't ever really know (well not for a loooong while at least).In the mean time we have instituted draconian measures in regards to peoples privacy, all under the guise of fighting terrorism - a lot of which was led by fear and lack of knowledge of this "new fangled internet thing" and the possibilities there - the issue mainly being barring normal citizens from a right to privacy, while all the time understanding that laws don't affect terrorists - they don't care if they break the law to remain anonymous or if their encryption use is legal or not.

All the while, the 12½ years previous to 9/11 there were numerous attacks, also classified as terrorist activity, in both the UK, Spain and the US - granted most of these were not the scary terrorist network know as Al-Qaeda, but other networks, such as the IRA and EPA (and for the US, lone wolf anti-government extremists) - most of which had a tendency to plant their explosives, and leave so they didn't kill themselves at the same time as their vicitms.

I can speak specifically of Denmark. Since 9/11 we have had 1 case of an explosive possible terrorist threat - "the one-legged bomber" who almost blew himself up in a toilet, then ran and hid under a bush in the park next door, where police with dogs could rather easily pick him up. Previous to 9/11 through just my remembered lifetime, there have been several bombs (small though) at various places - airline offices, the synagogue eyc. several of which actually went off.

In my opinion, because of the secrecy of the preventive measures and us not knowing what may be prevented (this goes both ways, we have nothing to sustain the idea that the intelligence communities are actually warding off terrorists attacks), means the measures are draconian and an undue limitation of the clear majority of persons (citizens or otherwise) and only serve to give the state more control - control of the kind anyone should be wary, especially when its given to democratically elected persons "for the betterment of us all" or some such drivel (without invoking Godwins law, I'll refer to the fact that Hitler rose to power through legal means (abuse of them, granted, but still legal)).